special
report 
The
PEN American Center recently hosted its "State of Emergency:
Unconventional Readings" event at The Cooper Union's Great
Hall in New York City. This report precedes the upcoming election
providing timely and thought provoking material. Our editors
urge you to vote during this election. Your vote. Your voice.
Don't lose either one.
INVISIBLE
SHACKLES:
THE CUFFING OF FREE SPEECH
By Julie Farin
WordSmitten Features Editor
"I
don't think any of us who are at this event delude ourselves
about terrorism. Terrorism does exist. In this city of all cities,
we know that. We know it exists and must be fought…How
we fight it, in my view, is going to be the great civilization
test of our time."
So
began award-winning novelist and PEN American Center president
Salman Rushdie at "State of Emergency: Unconventional Readings,"
in his opening remarks in the historic Great Hall of The Cooper
Union, a haven of free expression in New York's East Village
for more than a century.
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Authors
Russell Banks
and Salmon Rushdie at a recent
Pen American event. |
PEN
American Center, a fellowship of writers dedicated to the advancement
of literature, reading, and the defense of free speech, recently
invited fifteen writers and artists to a public reading of other
writers' works in support of the organization's mission. PEN's
recent concerns involve "three main areas in the USA Patriot
Act and the many related laws and executive orders," Rushdie
explained, "which have been enacted since September 11,
2001."
Among
them, he listed "privacy, access to information, and compliance
with international law and human rights standards…The
way in which the government is becoming increasingly intrusive
into areas of our lives, which the government has no business
to go into. What books we read, what shops we go to, what books
we borrow from universities, what do we think about. This gets
very close to the Thought Police, and it's something
which is not acceptable in a free society."
Accenting
the evening's message was the distribution of advance copies
of a futuristic novel called AMERICA 2014 - AN ORWELLIAN TALE,
by Dawn Blair (2004/Progressive Source Publishing). An updated
version of George Orwell's "1984," and a political
thriller, this book projects ten years into the future with
a thinly disguised George Blush Administration in its
fourth term. Winston Smith is a young successful producer of
patriotic commercials for the Department of Homeland Security.
While working to fulfill his dream of making a contemporary
film version of "1984," Smith runs afoul of government
censors, is forced to stand trial in a nightmarish courtroom,
and faces brutal execution in a privatized prison.
Salman
Rushdie knows all too well about these dangers from first-hand
experience. Following the 1989 publication of his controversial
novel THE SATANIC VERSES, which criticized Islam, the award-winning
writer was forced to live underground for many years after Iran's
Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to all Muslims calling for
his death. "There are serious reasons to say that there
is a crisis in this country," he emphasized, "of civil
liberties, freedom of speech, and human rights of exactly the
kind that PEN has spent over 80 years protesting about when
it happens in other countries."
Each
reading continued to explore the theme of invisible shackles,
of the contemporary undercurrents, restrictions, and statutes
pushing toward the restraint of free speech. Highlights of the
evening included readings from Henry David Thoreau's Slavery
in Massachusetts (Paul Auster); excerpts from Mark Twain's
essay To the Person Sitting in Darkness (Russell Banks);
a defiant statement from Susan B. Anthony after being sentenced
for illegally voting in 1872 (Barbara Goldsmith); passages from
the pacifist novel JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN by Dalton Trumbo, one
of the "Hollywood Ten" writers who was blacklisted
in the 1950s by the House Un-American Activities Committee (Edward
P. Jones); bi-lingual slices of Cervantes' DON QUIXOTE (read
in both English and Spanish versions by Ariel Dorfman); and,
numerous malapropisms of George W. Bush compiled into an amusing
tale called Birds and Hunter (Jonathan Safran Foer).
The
Great Hall was the site of the birth of the NAACP, the women's
suffrage and workers' rights movements, and the American Red
Cross. For more than 150 years famous American rebels and activists,
movers and shakers, and poets and presidents have spoken from
its podium including Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Grover
Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow
Wilson, and Bill Clinton.
The
tradition was continued during PEN's event by award-winning
novelist Russell Banks, who read from Mark Twain's 1901 essay
"To the Person Sitting in Darkness."
"If we remember Granada, the Alamo, Panama and Vietnam,"
Banks began, "then we will see at once that the War in
Iraq is not something new, but something old."
He
chose a passage that fits well in today's editorial pages even
though the words were drawn from Twain's more-than-a-century-old
essay. "There is something curious about this—curious
and unaccountable," Twain wrote. "There must be two
Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes
a once-captive's new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel
with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get
his land."
Non-fiction
author and New York magazine founding editor Barbara
Goldsmith echoed Twain's sentiment by reading from Susan B.
Anthony's court statement after the suffragist was found guilty
for illegally voting in the 1872 elections.
"In
your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled underfoot
every vital principle of our government," Anthony explained
vehemently. "My natural rights, my civil rights, my political
rights, are all alike ignored. Robbed of the fundamental privilege
of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of citizen to
that of a subject; and not only myself individually, but all
of my sex, are, by your honor's verdict, doomed to political
subjection under this so-called Republican government."
EVERYTHING
IS ILLUMINATED author Jonathan Safran Foer presented the evening's
comic relief with a humorous anecdote called Birds and Hunter,
which he noted was a collection of remarks by President George
W. Bush, woven together, with some assistance from Foer, into
a written essay. Using a compilation of the President's quotes
and numerous malapropisms, Foer created the brief tale. This
is an excerpt:
"I
want to thank the astronauts who are with us, the courageous
spatial entrepreneurs. This foreign policy stuff is a little
frustrating, but this is a fabulous country we live in, it is.
Foreign relations between Canada and Mexico have never been
better. More and more of our imports are coming from overseas.
I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even
though I wasn't here. Please just remember that it's the birds
that are supposed to suffer, not the hunter…"
Foer
demonstrated that Bush, who in the past has made statements
that he does not read, is challenged by the English language.
Quotes attributed to Bush included, "I tell you I love
going to North Carolina. And I'm proud to be your President.
How many hands did I shake? I'm honored just to shake them.
I'm honored to shake the hand of the brave Iraqi citizen who
had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein. I am not a revengeful
person. And I will continue to articulate what I believe, and
what I believe, and I believe what I believe is right."
The audience of more than 900—in a crowded SRO auditorium—cheered
Foer and roared with laughter.
Salman
Rushdie concluded the evening by reading a quote from a recent
issue of New York magazine from former PEN president
Norman Mailer. "It is better to remind ourselves that wisdom
is ready to reach us from the most unexpected quarters,"
Mailer believes. "Here, I quote from a man who became wise
a little too late in life: 'Naturally, the common people don't
want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who
determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag
the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship
or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice,
the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being
attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism
and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every
country.' That was Hermann Goering speaking at the Nuremberg
trials after World War II," Mailer explained. "It
is one thing to be forewarned. Will we ever be forearmed?"
Resources:
www.pen.org
www.readerprivacy.org
Additional
reading: List of essays
selected by the Pen American authors for this August event at
The Cooper Union in Manhattan.
